Aladdin O'Brien eBook

Title: Aladdin O’Brien

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5172] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on May 29, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** Startoftheprojectgutenberg
EBOOK Aladdin O’BRIEN ***

ALADDIN O’BRIEN

BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

BOOK I

“It was many and many
a year ago,
In a kingdom by
the sea,
That a maiden there lived
whom you may know
By the name of
Annabel Lee.
And this maiden she lived
with no other thought
Than to love and
be loved by me.
I was a child and she was
a child”—­

ALADDIN O’BRIEN

I

It was on the way home from Sunday-school that Aladdin
had enticed Margaret to the forbidden river.
She was not sure that he knew how to row, for he
was prone to exaggerate his prowess at this and that,
and she went because of the fine defiance of it, and
because Aladdin exercised an irresistible fascination.
He it was who could whistle the most engagingly through
his front teeth; and he it was, when sad dogs of boys
of the world were met behind the barn, who could blow
the smoke of the fragrant grapevine through his nose,
and swallow the same without alarm to himself or to
his admirers. To be with him was in itself a
soulful wickedness, a delicious and elevating lesson
in corruption. But to be with him when he had
done wrong, and was sorry for it (as always when found
out), that was enough to give one visions of freckled
angels, and the sweetness of Paradise in May.

Aladdin brought the skiff into the float, stern first,
with a bump. Pride sat high upon his freckled
brow, and he whistled piercing notes.

“I can do it,” he said. “Now
get in.”

Margaret embarked very gingerly and smoothed her dress
carefully, before and after sitting down. It
was a white and starchy dress of price, with little
blue ribbons at the throat and wrists—­such
a dress as the little girl of a very poor papa will
find laid out on the gilt and brocade chair beside
her bed if she goes to sleep and wakes up in heaven.

“Only a little way, ’Laddin, please.”

The boy made half a dozen circular, jabbing strokes,
and the skiff zigzagged out from the float.
It was a fine blue day, cool as a cucumber, and across
the river from the deserted shipyards, where, upon
lofty beamings, stood all sorts of ships in all stages
of composition, the frequent beeches and maples showed
pink and red and yellow against the evergreen pines.

“It’s easy ’nough,” said Aladdin.
And Margaret agreed in her mind, for it is the splash
of deeds rather than the skill or power which impresses
a lady. The little lady sat primly in the stern,
her mitted paws folded; her eyes, innocent and immense,
fastened admiringly upon the rowing boy.